The possibility for all registered users to upload their own strategies was extremely successful. Since then, Xu-Fu has grown immensely thanks to everyone who contributes. On a much smaller scale, however, we saw a number of strategies that were not up to the standards we set out. When I created Xu-Fu's Pet Guides, my goal was simply to provide my own strategies. That later turned into providing the best strategies for each fight and a good variety for all different levels of battlers.
We still think that's a good goal to have, but it's a vague one. The problem it created was that we never clearly defined those standards we'd like to see on the page. In the last weeks, the strategy curators and myself have formulated such guidelines and they are now ready to be shared:

We think these rules provide a good compromise between the freedom of uploading your own strategy and our efforts to keep the page accessible and helpful to everyone.
Please have a read through, and leave a comment if you disagree with anything in it.

I have some great news to share, and no, it's not WoW Classic related, sorry. It is, however, related to someone you have stumbled upon almost guaranteed if you've been using Xu-Fu to look up strategies in the last few months. So pretty much everyone who will read this. I am talking about DragonsAfterDark!

She is one of the most active pet battlers here on the page and so far has uploaded more than 700 strategies, many of which are the top picks and most favourited for their specific fight.
If you want to see more from her besides strategies, head over to her Twitch channel where you might see some live battles going on. With that amount of experience and knowledge, it is probably not surprising that she's now joining the ranks of Strategy Curators here on Xu-Fu!

Congrats and thank you so much for the invaluable help you are providing us fellow pet battlers :-)

To be honest, I didn't even realize it until someone in my stream pointed it out. I guess I could have done ManticoresAfterMorning, but I'm partial to dragons, and at the time I was streaming at night after the tiny human went to bed. ;)

The patch is live and with it the usual suspects - API problems ^^
Importing or updating your pet collection from the armory currently returns zero pets. This is an issue on Blizzards side and we'll need to wait until it's been addressed.
In the meanwhile, it's the perfect opportunity to build some better error messages in so you know what's going on when trying to update your collection :-)

Are you using any automated addon updater like the curse client? I've heard before that some of them or wrong settings in them result in a full re-import of your addons (incl. settings and teams) whenever you start WoW. Perhaps that helps in tracking down the reason!

The only buttons I've got on my "Pet Collection" page (https://www.wow-petguide.com/?page=collection) on the lower-left side are "Update Now" and "Change Region". There's no "Change Character" button. In case it matters, I'm on the EU region.

Okay, so here is how I got around the glitch. I updated (imported) my pets, with a character who I have not logged into since before the latest patch. It had to be one who had not set foot in the waters of 8.2. I hope this helps someone.

In the last weeks, Xu-Fu got a lot of additional help, both from veteran Xu-Fu collaborators and new people. Most of the work has been put into guides and they are definitely worth a shout-out here.
One by one, the page now hosts:

Pet Powerleveling GuideWritten by Nyari and translated by Shenk, this guide explains in detail where and how to level up your pets in the most efficient ways possible, from Super-Squirt days all the way to great farming spots for wild pet battles.

Most used PvE PetsAnother addition by Nyari, a Tier list of pets depending on how often they are used in PvE strategies (against tamers or pet challenges). While not strictly necessary, the top spots on this list make a great shopping list for new battlers to be able and beat many different fights very quickly.

New PvP guideThe PvP section also got a lot of love by Shenk and Rosqo.
In this article, you will find detailed information about the most common team setups and strategies, as well as concrete team suggestions. This new article also allows you to add your own PvP teams if you like :-)

TD and Rematch GuidesWe already had a guide on how TD scripts work and how to write them, written by Wazzak and Celellach.
Nyari and Shenk now followed up on this with a guide on how to use Rematch + TD Scripts.
And on the matter of TD Scripts, if you feel like trying your hands on writing them but feel stuck or just have a question, jump onto our Discord and we're happy to help! It's not too difficult and you don't need any programming knowledge to understand how it works and put your own scripts together :-)

I'd like to say thank you to all those mentioned on this page. Each of them has helped me with various aspects of pet battling, TD scripting, Strategy design, and pet skills and abilities. Others on Discord channel have been very patient with my silly questions. I'm amazed at how generous this community has been with their knowledge and time. It's opened up a whole new aspect of fun in World of Warcraft that I previously had hardly experienced. To all those folks, and to Aranesh, thanks for all you've done. Thanks for all you continue to do!

The recent maintenance paved the way for some big changes on Xu-Fu’s Pet Guides. If you joined us on Discord, you will have seen the beginnings of it already. Now it’s time to unveil the big news: Xu-Fu is going to transform from a page dedicated solely to providing the best strategies, to becoming the best pet trading platform on this planet!

We are going to introduce tools for you to compare collections, find compatible trading partners, offer up pets for others and to look for people who could give you a specific pet you might still be missing.
But we are not stopping there! We are already partnering up with other games to promote cross-trading, and once our user base is broad enough, ultimately offer the very same services for your beloved real life pets! Just imagine being able to trade your collection of Iron Starlettes for a cute puppy, with only a few clicks!

It truly is an exciting time, and to make all of this more obvious to each visitor, we are going to do a full rebrand.
Even though Xu-Fu lasted us a long time as a mascot, from this day onward, we will embrace the new direction with a title and logo:

Activity has picked up on Xu-Fu and I’m really excited to introduce you to the latest addition in pet collection tools: The Pet Moocher! Not an April fools joke, it’s a real thing!
Ever wanted to compare your collection to someone else for any duplicate, cageable pets you can trade between each other? Or maybe just be selfish and see which ones you could mooch from someone else? That doesn’t have to be a tedious task with lists and formulas, enter the Pet Moocher!

Sounds like a bad commercial, I know, but it is pretty sweet! So, how does it work? It’s not a tool here on the page but over at Xu-Fu’s Discord channel. Once you’re in (you need a Discord account for that, but that’s free as well), just head over to the channel trade-eu or trade-us and read the instructions. It’s super easy to use, you just enter your own character name + realm and those of another player, and within seconds the Pet Moocher will tell you something like this:

Yuvilee has 2 tradeable Pets, that Aranesh does not own:
Bananas, Thistleleaf Adventurer

Oh my, good that you ask! And if you order now, you will also get this amazing extra comment completely free!
But that's not all!!
Well, actually it is. The answer is quite simply: maaaaybe if I find the time for it? ^^